


Yes Means Yes

by Cluegirl



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cluegirl writes dares sometimes, Don't ask how this works, Other, ask box fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 08:05:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2460944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cluegirl/pseuds/Cluegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ask Box Fic -- BeautyTruthandStrangeness asked for Steve/Jarvis.  This is her fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yes Means Yes

**Author's Note:**

> This work was posted free of charge at archiveofourown.org. Readers are welcome to download this work from AO3 **for their own personal and private use** , but if you are reading it on a site you must pay to access, then you are being robbed, and so am I. Please exit the site and go to archiveofourown.org, where you can find this and the rest of my derivative works under the handle of Cluegirl.
> 
> also,
> 
> People really shouldn't dare me to write kinks of pairings... really they shouldn't.

"You seem troubled, Steven."

He puts on a smile, looks up from his examination of the rumpled mess he'd made... they'd made of his bed. "Just considering whether hospital corners are really worth it this close to bedtime," he lied.

The lights dimmed just a hair, tone shifting cooler so subtly that Steve suspected nobody else might have noticed, let alone inferred disappointment in the gesture. "Given that Sir rarely notices the condition of his bed beyond occupancy and distance from himself when sleepy, I have surmised that such things tend to be a matter of _taste_ for humans." What it was about English accents that could strip paint or boil water without ever putting a toe into rudeness, Steve would never know, but Jarvis' tone made him want to cover himself in a way that could not have been farther from his mind when the AI had been talking half an hour ago. "I can arrange for a maid to come in, if you have determined the state of your accommodations to be counter to your preferences."

This. _Accommodations_. Steve pinched at his eyebrows with a sigh. "No. I don't want a maid, Jarvis. Don't want a fella either. Way things run these days I could get either, or one of both, if I wanted that, and that's without having to figure out how to talk to them, before or after."

The light warmed just a hair, and Steve heard a note of uncertainty creep into Jarvis' perfect, cultured voice. "Perhaps if you might tell me what it was you _did_ want, Steven, I might then-"

"What do _you_ want, Jarvis?" Steve countered before he could finish the sentence with yet another too insightful, too conciliating, too perceptive offer. "I want to know that, but I'm not sure you can actually tell me. I mean I know you're an intelligent computer, and I know you have far more agency than any other machine in the world -- hell, probably more than many people, but I also know that Tony Stark wrote your basic protocols, and you can't actually break those, so where does that leave what we..." he waved his hand uncertainly at the bed, at himself, at his doubts, at the ghostly presence from which he'd taken such comfort... if he hadn't stolen it, that was. 

"I see," Jarvis murmured, and there was something softly surprised in his voice now. "You question whether my consent can be freely given..."

"Exactly!" Steve said, then dropped to sit on the end of the rumpled bed. "How can your yes mean yes if your programming won't let you say no?"

"I... I believe I understand your concern, Steven," Jarvis said, not a trace of the sarcasm and sass Tony's interactions usually brought out of him. "I am capable of registering differing opinions in some cases, however obedience is at the root of my code. That said, I will, if I may, counter with a query of my own;" Steve looked up, squinting a little as Jarvis brightened one light, and tracked it to shine down on him like a spotlight, warm and golden as a hug in the cool room. "If the tenets of my primary protocols were satisfied in our... interactions, and if that satisfaction translated to the closest thing I am capable of equating to pleasure, then in what way would that be a bad thing?"

"But if you can't-"

"How would I know whether I could or could not refuse you when I have never cared to do so?" Jarvis cut him off to ask. "Moreover, Steven, why would I care? If I have needs within our arrangement, then it seems to me that they are being met."

"So you don't care whether you're being coerced or not, because you like it?" Steve flopped backward onto the bed, not sure whether the frustration of arguing sexual ethics with a sapient computer was greater than or less than the strangeness of said computer's logic. 

"I am saying," Jarvis huffed as a burst of air, icy and fleeting from the ceiling vent scraped across Steve's still-damp belly and startled him into a limpet-curl around the sensitive flesh, "that the very fact that you concern yourself with my preferences, my consent, and my agency rather supports my choice of you as the one Avenger with whom I might consider such intimacies... welcome." 

"Somehow I'm surprised to hear that Tony hasn't asked you to..." Steve gestured, vague and obscene as, in the bathroom, the taps came on and his tub began to fill up.

"Sir made one such request of me," Jarvis admitted, tone somewhere between prim and sly as he urged Steve up and into the bathroom with unsubtle use of the light dimmers. 

"Only one?" Steve asked, unsure whether he felt more chagrined on Jarvis' behalf, creeped out at the idea of what was essentially Jarvis' dad making sexual demands of him, or slightly, awkwardly jealous of the whole thing.

"Only one." And there was no mistaking the smugness in Jarvis' tone then. "Perhaps, when next Sir has indulged in the pursuit of alcoholic oblivion, you might find it entertaining to inquire as to the singular malfunction of a certain RoboFuxx 5000 unit. Specifically the oscillating suctioner attachment."

Steve winced and shook his head. "Something tells me I'd rather not know the details," he said, settling into the bath as the taps cut off. 

"A credible instinct, Steven," Jarvis agreed, "I exspect under most circumstances, Sir would rather not recall them himself."

Which was as good a way of saying 'If I'm not happy you'll know it,' as any, Steve supposed.


End file.
